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Poor Personal Training

Facebook is awash these days with people visiting the gym, using Personal Trainers.
More and more I am reading about how hard people are working.
I have worked so hard that I canít stand up properly. My legs are so sore I canít walk properly. It must have been a good sesh I canít walk for days after.
WRONG
If you are working with a trainer who continually works you so hard that you canít walk, I suggest you find a trainer who knows what they are doing.
Any idiot can take someone into a gym and push them so much that they feel sore for days and days after. There is no skill or science involved in that.
People associate DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) with muscle damage, so therefore muscle damage equals repair and therefore the muscles hypertrophy. This is outdated nonsense promoted by Personal Trainers who have limited knowledge and education in their chosen field.
So the reasons behind DOMS are not well known but recent studies and papers suggest itís down to inflammation caused by microscopic tears in the connective tissue elements that sensitize nociceptors and thereby heighten the sensations of pain.
This also leads down us another path in what causes hypertrophy. Well the 3 major factors for hypertrophy are mechanical stress, metabolic stress and muscle damage. So there are 3 reasons listed above.
So basically you can have hypertrophy without muscle damage, as muscle damage is massively counterproductive.
Firstly severe soreness can significantly reduce force-producing capacity. Which will be detrimental to performance in subsequent workouts. Second, motivation, who wants to train when you canít bloody move anyway!
I can go on and on about this but I will leave it there. If you have got to this point you have read some of what I have to say. Have a think about it and if you think it's time for a change from your existing trainer or coach, or you are tired of putting yourself through your old routines. Please get in touch myself and my wife will be happy to help you achieve your goals!
1 Brad J Schoenfold and Bret Contreras, "Is Post exercise Soreness a Valid Indicator of Muscle Adaptations?" Strength and Conditioning Journal
2 Brad J Schoenfeld, "the Mechanisms for Muscle Hypertrophy, and Their Application to Resistance Training" Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research